Strategic Thinking and Planning: A Critical Analysis of System Thinking and Its Application in Business

Running head: STRATEGIC THINKING AND PLANNING
Strategic Thinking and Planning
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This essay is written with the purpose of analysing the statement “Systems thinking
essentially seeks to understand phenomena as a whole formed by the interaction of parts” ,
described in Stacey, (2011) critically and it will help to provide perception on the approaches
of strategic management and system thinking in such a dynamic environment of business
(Haines 2016). As the nature of industrial issues are becoming complicated day by day,
organisations are demanded to think and implement new strategies as effectively as possible.
As the scenario is changing rapidly, with the help of the reference taken from North et al.
(2013)modelling complexity will be discussed through a process called Complex Adaptive
System. It will also elaborate a practice perspective to think effective strategies. The fact
cannot be denied that the entire world is experiencing a change as countries are being
interconnected with the progress of globalisation (Bond and O'Byrne 2014). As a result of
this, a complex social system is introducing itself as well as the demand of strategic thinking
is increasing in the global field of business. Modification of policies in any nation can leave a
deep impact on others as technological advancement has made the system dependent on each
other on a large scale. For instance, United States’ decision of reducing foreign aids can be
concerned. As described in Crawford, Costa-Gomes and Iriberri(2013), the governing body
once decided to increase the flow of domestic spending and it casted an unpredictable effect
on the other nations’ strategic planning. Therefore, through a systematic process of thinking
and implementing strategies, extremely complicated and unpredictable situations canbe
handled and how the entire process is going to be effective, that will be the central topic of
discussion.
The theme of strategic thinking revolves around the proper analysis of opportunities,
probable issues and a vision towards consequences caused by decisions and actions of a
certain organisation (Brocas et al. 2014). This process is considered globally as an ongoing
phenomenon and not an event. Thinkers have a visionary approach towards both the existing

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and future issues and its solutions. Managers should not consider this as an individual
thinking style;instead, it is a perception, whichgradually grows by interacting among the
organizations and learning from the strategic areas of business operations. A detail discussion
on how to analyse strategies has been conducted in Grant(2016), it also states that every
strategy is unique in nature as it is not possible to imitate thoughts for the competitors.
Strategic management helps to introduce perspectives and approaches yet to describe the
thinking process by a certain definition can be difficult as the approaches are numerous.
According to, Vanhaverbeke and Roijakkers(2013), it will be easier to understand the entire
procedure if the characteristics of strategic thinking can be elaborated first instead of going
through definitions because none of them covers all the dimensions. Strategic thinkers,
whenever face difficult situation they try to solve that with prior perception and available
information their ability lies in deciding something effective which will be beneficial for the
organisation and at the same time creates a positive impact on other companies or nations.
However, information cannot be available entirely unless one is living an ideal world.
Therefore, they have to take decision withability of thinking pragmatically based on the
partly available information and considering a wider scenario of work. It will help them to
attain appropriate insight as far as understanding of issues and concrete action is concerned
(LEU et al.2014).
Strategic management comes with two approaches of planning and thinking.Planning
helps an organisation to deal with the unpredictable,not so pleasant situations within an
organisation and to gain the competitive advantage in the market over the rivals. On the other
hand, managers use strategic thinking to identify the effective factors, which will help to
accomplish the objectives of an organisation along with satisfying the customers. This ability
of thinking comes from a creative mind as well as deeper understanding of business
operations. The managers should have enough vision to guide a company towards success

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unless both the potential and resources will go in vain. A book entitled ‘Strategic Thinking’
written by Kenichi Ohmae says that if the fundamental issues cannot be recognised in a
proper way, both the physical and psychological pressure on the employees will not be able
to deliver the desired outcome. Strategic thinking involves recognising the field of
competition as well as understanding the opportunities before the competitors get to know
about those. In order to understand the impact of strategic thinking the instance of Amazon’s
one of the managerial decisions can be taken into account. They decided to sell books online
for the first time back in the year of 1995, as they were able to identify the fact that virtual
shopping not only reduces costs but also creates more choices for the customers. An insight
provided by Eden and Ackermann(2013), as they recognised the opportunity before any other
company did, automatically the point added up to their favour and helped them to gain
competitive advantage in the market. In the midst of such a dynamic environment of
business,these approaches create motivation and commitment for the enterprise and its
stakeholders. Therefore, it can be stated that strategic planning is necessary to execute the
prior framed strategies, which are unconventional in nature,through a pragmatic thinking
process.
Strategic thinking delivers a sense of systematic attitude. There are two central
contributions of the systematic approach to the strategic management of a certain
organisation. The system provides a guidance on which the strategic planning is going to be
applied; it determines the appropriate way and time to apply the strategy as well. Moreover, it
suggests a series of methodologies, which should be implemented as a strategic plan. Before
applying systematic methods,it is important to know the factors working behind any kind of
organisational emergency. A strategic thinker should frame a system of values and develop a
perception on the relationship between several factors influencing the business. According to
the porter’s model “strategy is a holistic and integrated attitude”, yet several different